


Flesh and blood

by ysande



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Blood Loss, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Napoleon!Whump, illya!whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 18:06:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4845224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysande/pseuds/ysande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hong Kong in July is heavy with humidity, the damp heat unrelenting even late into the night. Napoleon knows this. It's not the first time he's been to Hong Kong. Even Illya has been forced by the oppressive heat to have loosened his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt. Gaby's curls are slicked behind her ear. Napoleon himself can't feel the warmth, only the cloying, sticky air, but he doesn't need to in order to shuck his jacket and follow suit with his own top button, blending in to become yet another foreign businessman.</p>
<p>Turns out that blood loss and alcohol don't mix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh and blood

Hong Kong in July is heavy with humidity, the damp heat unrelenting even late into the night. Napoleon knows this. It's not the first time he's been to Hong Kong. Even Illya has been forced by the oppressive heat to have loosened his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt. Gaby's curls are slicked behind her ear. Napoleon himself can't feel the warmth, only the cloying, sticky air, but he doesn't need to in order to shuck his jacket and follow suit with his own top button, blending in to become yet another foreign businessman.

The hotel bar is still open and still lively, the sounds of brisk English and excited Cantonese rising and swirling around them. In one corner, a young Chinese man plays love ballads on the saxophone, and in another, a pianist provides a tinkling accompaniment.

Illya's scowling at nothing and everything. Napoleon's mouth quirks. Of course the Russian's unhappy. The elegant bar, the beautifully dressed rich, the decadence of music and dancing at ten to one in the morning. Hong Kong is a delightfully urbane contrast to the rigidly Communist and secretive China only a stone's throw away, a deliberate snub at everything a good KGB agent should stand for.

"You should try the _sing dow_ ," Napoleon drawls, deliberately using the local name for the beer he's holding. It feels like an ice-cold lead weight in his fingers. "Much more refreshing than that teenage identity crisis that you're drinking."

It's so ludicrously easy to needle his partner that Napoleon shouldn't find enjoyment in it, but he does. As expected, Illya's frown grows deeper. "This drink is fine. And you should not be drinking beer."

Napoleon raises an eyebrow at him, amused and a little condescending. 'Wrong on both counts there, Peril. There is never an acceptable time for anyone to mix tea with coffee and then offer the additional insult of serving it cold.' He's gratified when Gaby laughs, mellowed enough by the spirits she's been tossing back to regain at least some levity.

"Solo is right," she declares, after taking an unladylike gulp from Illya's cup and making a face. "It's a bad idea and it's even worse in execution."

"And of course I should be drinking beer. We're all still alive, despite the events of today. I'm celebrating." To prove his point, Napoleon drinks deeply from the bottle.

And almost gags. He doesn't of course. He's Napoleon Solo. Instead, there's just the briefest of hitches before he swallows the mouthful and looks over at Illya, mouth deliberately curved in the most obnoxious smile he can manage. Damnably, though, he's not sure how well he is managing. Illya looks annoyed, to be sure, but Napoleon can't guarantee that it was his work and not the Russian's natural state of being. At the edges of that irritation, Napoleon is worried that he can see concern, or something akin to it. Napoleon flushes, feels his clammy cheeks warm with discomfort at the idea. He adores concern. Seeks it out and laps it up and encourages it whenever he can, because concern is a little spark of connection, and connections lead to influence and pressure points and favours - but only when the concern is unwarranted and unnecessary, or else it's a detested sign of weakness.

Napoleon is beginning to feel the stirrings of dread deep in the pit of his stomach, where it sits uneasily with the beer that he's been able to force down. His fingers are not just numb with cold on this ridiculous sauna of a night, they've started to tremble. The knife wound to his thigh is a distant, insistent throb of pain against the tight bandage, flaring and stuttering in time with his pulse. It's possible that Illya was right after all, and that blood loss and an adrenalin crash and alcohol really do not mix well at, but Napoleon will be damned if he ever admits to it.

"You're a fool," Illya tells him bluntly. "You should go to bed."

Napoleon flutters his lashes coyly in Illya's direction. "Are you offering, Peril?" he leers, but his lips are tingling and about as responsive as rubber. Darkness encroaches at the very fringes of his vision. Damn, damn, damn. The man _had_ been right, after all. Napoleon needs to leave, needs to extricate himself from the humiliation that lies in the very, very near future, needs to do it all immediately in a way that won't arouse the suspicion of either Gaby or Illya, and he needs to do it all before his vision blurs and his stomach betrays him.

Salvation appears in the form of an extremely pretty waitress, glossy black hair swept up into an elegant knot, dark eyes catching his. He'd been casting appreciative looks her way all hour, and was grateful that that was paying off, although not exactly the way he had originally envisaged.

"May I be of assistance to you, sir?" she asks warmly, leaning in a little closer than strictly necessary. She smells faintly of jasmine and soap. It doesn't help the nausea.

Napoleon gives her his most charming smile, though. "Perhaps," he drawls. "I seem to be lost."

She looks puzzled. "Lost, sir?"

"I was wondering whether you could help me find my way tonight," he says coaxingly, jingling his room key in his hand. "I can't seem to remember where my suite is. This is such an awfully big hotel."

The waitress giggles. Napoleon blinks twice to clear the fog from his vision. 

"Of course, sir," she says, blushingly, "it would be my pleasure."

Napoleon would feel like an utter cad if his intentions had been anything other than use her as a decoy to flee the thoughtful eyes of a very tipsy Gaby, and the steely gaze of a very irritated (as always) Illya.

As it is, he uses every single inch of his poise and strength to rise without faltering, and to gallantly offer his hand to the dark haired young lady. 

"My apologies," he says smoothly to Illya and Gaby, who watch the interplay without much surprise. They've been working together for long enough now that Napoleon's habits are familiar to them. "My celebration's relocating upstairs. I'll see you both in the afternoon." He doesn't wink - that would be crass and unbecoming - but there's evidently enough of a suggestion in his voice that Illya's lips thin and Gaby tilts her head to give him a sidelong look.

Napoleon doesn't care. It's taking all of his concentration to walk in a straight line, and the lively din of the bar has faded beneath a hateful buzz that's too close. Sweat breaks out on his upper lip as he waits for the lift to be called, but at least, in this, he looks like anyone else in Hong Kong on a summer night. He doesn't even offer an excuse to his unknowing assistant, just waves her away and stumbles drunkenly down the corridor to his room when they reach the correct floor. He hopes that she'll just chalk it up to yet another _gwei lo_ who's had more alcohol than he can handle. 

His hands are shaking so badly that he can't fit the key into the lock. Napoleon grits his teeth. He's so close, but if he can't get the door open in the next half a minute, room service is going to find him in a heap outside it come morning. He succeeds on the fifth try - in ordinary conditions, he could have managed in half a second with a hair pin - and more or less tumbles into the room, scrabbling to push the door shut behind him.

It's dark inside but for the distant city lights shining outside and below his window. He needs to turn on the light, he knows that, but he also knows that there is no way that he can stand again, and he can't reach the light from the pathetic huddle that he's in on the floor. But that's the least of his problems. His teeth are chattering from the cold, and somehow in the last few minutes, breathing has become a labouriously painful process. Most pressing of all, though, is the roiling nausea and the crushing dizziness that crashes over him. Napoleon crawls to the bathroom and throws up until he dry heaves, then lets his aching head rest on the unforgiving tiles. Shock, he thinks dispassionately, likely from blood loss and the sudden surge of adrenalin of the evening. He's not quite bad enough to lose all awareness, though, and he's most certainly not bad enough not to feel overwhelming relief that he hadn't succumbed to this embarrassing display of indignity in front of his new colleagues.

\---

Illya raps sharply on the door, one hand around Gaby's tiny waist as she leans comfortably into his side. He frowns at the silence that greets his knocking. If he had heard laughing voices, or even the cries and moans of passion - Illya's ears turn red from that memory - he would have been more than happy to have left the reckless American to his own devices. But the utter stillness is worrying.

"Open the door," Gaby directs him, bossy as ever and most probably right. "If he could have stopped you, he would have."

Illya grunts, and begins to disentangle himself from Gaby so that he can kick the door down when she gives him a withering look.

"There is a doorknob, you know. You could try that."

Illya does, if only to humour her, but frowns as the door swings open as he twists, unlocked and unguarded. The room is dark and still.

"Cowboy?" he calls, and Gaby shuts the door and turns on the light, all traces of inebriation vanishing in an instant.

Illya's eyes sweep the room in an instant, but there's no sign of life. The bed is luxuriously made and untouched. The lounge is invitingly plush, but empty. Illya strides into the suite, Gaby at his heels.

Solo is a limp form on the bathroom floor, skin grey and slick with sweat. His eyes warily track their approach.

"Go," he breathes. "'m'fine".

"American "fine" is very different to Russian "fine"," Illya retorts. "Unsurprising that your products are inferior."

Solo's response is an inarticulate mumble, either his body or his brain too scrambled for form words.

"Solo," Gaby says impatiently. "We are not leaving you unconscious on the bathroom floor no matter what you say. So you may as well save your breath."

"Not unconscious," Solo retorts, somehow managing to sound affronted even though his words are slurring together.

Gaby arches a brow at Illya. "You heard him. Shall we leave him then?" she says sarcastically, unimpressed at what is clearly a futile display of pride. Her hands bely her words, gently and efficiently examining Solo's body for unknown injuries.

"Are you hurt?" Illya demands.

Solo huffs a sigh, tired and resigned. "No. Just..." 

The linen of Solo's suit pants is clean and unstained, but Illya knows that it hides an ugly knife wound. He and Gaby had done a serviceable job in stitching it closed and bandaging it tightly, and it had not seemed to slow Solo down all night, apart from a slight limp as he ran, and Illya had dismissed it from his mind as one of those minor inconveniences that come with the job. Illya frowns. He does not like to be wrong.

"Well, that floor does not look very comfortable," Gaby announces in the way that she has, usually when she wants either one of them to do something, matter-of-fact and pointed.

Solo sighs again, just the faintest of exhalations that Illya would have missed if he had not been paying close attention. A heartbeat later, Solo's demeanour changes - he shifts subtly until his loose-limbed sprawl is somehow lazy rather than exhausted, and he tilts his head to look up at them, the familiar, amused smile on his lips and a spark of insolence in his eyes.

"I hadn't considered that before, but you're absolutely right, Gaby," Solo teases, charming as ever, even prostrate on the floor. 

Illya scowls, because he now knows Solo and Gaby well enough to know their habits and their moods, and he knows when the smooth charm that opens doors more effectively than the best lock picks is just a diversion and a forgery.

"If you'll just give me a minute," Solo continues lightly - he pushes himself up almost to a sitting position, but his arms are trembling as they support him, and his breath is laboured and too fast.

"What are you doing?" Gaby exclaims, dropping to her knees to support him. Solo tries ineffectually to bat her hands away.

"Cowboy. Stop this." Illya crouches next to Solo, slides an arm beneath his shoulders and the other behind his knees. He grunts a little as he stands - Solo is solidly sculpted muscle, and his listless body is surprisingly heavy. It's only a small movement, and Illya thinks that he's been as gentle as he can, but Solo makes a quiet sound of distress. His head lolls against Illya's shoulder, betraying just how much that brief moment of bravado has cost him.

Illya crosses the suite in three strides to carefully place Solo on the bed. 

"Be still," he tells Solo. "There is no-one you must act for here."

Solo tries to hold his gaze, to reply with a disarming parry, perhaps, one hand reaching out across the sheets in an unconscious gesture of appeal, but the American is pale and on the verge of collapse, and although he fights it, his lashes flutter and his eyes roll back as his body goes limp.

"Is he bleeding again?" Gaby calls from where she's rummaging through her luggage.

"Not so much now," Illya replies, stripping Solo down to his trunks with quick efficiency and no embarrassment at all. The bandage on his thigh is stained with blood, but it's dark and tacky, not bright and wet.

Gaby appears at his side with a small leather satchel. It's MI6 issue, a kit of medical supplies for the field. "I thought he was not badly hurt," she says in a small voice. 

"It's likely Cowboy did not know it himself," Illya excuses. "Adrenalin is strong drug." And pride had gone a long way too, Illya acknowledges silently. Pride in a job well done and a target acquired, but also the darker, prickly pride that keeps a man quiet when he is in pain, and jesting when he is on the verge of collapse.

"Can this help?" Gaby asks, hefting her bag.

Illya only glances at it. "He is not bleeding much now," he says. "He will wake soon, I think."

Gaby gives him an unreadable look and climbs on the bed next to Solo, her small hands cupping his square jaw. 

"Napoleon," she says loudly. "Napoleon!" 

There is no response at all, not even the flicker of an eyelid. Solo's face is grey and pinched and utterly still. Gaby slaps him quickly, lightly, across one cheek. 

Illya frowns. There's no flush of red in response to the strike. He presses two fingers to Solo's throat, feels the clamminess of the skin. An erratic pulse flutters under his touch, weak and much too fast.

Gaby stares at him, wide-eyed. "Is he dead?"

Illya barks out a laugh. "No," he replies soberly when she shoots him a furious glare. But Gaby is so quick to learn, so tough and spirited in her new life as an active agent, that he forgets, sometimes, how new to it she is. "But he is not good," he continues. "Has lost much blood."

"Does he need a hospital?" The two of them share a long glance. It is only by chance that they've tracked their mark to Hong Kong. Last night they had thought they were on their way to Tokyo, where their contacts were set up. In Hong Kong, they are flying more than a little blind. Solo has private contacts here and even speaks very basic Chinese, but of course that's no help to them now. A discreet and private doctor will not be readily available, then, and to march into a hospital with an unconscious foreigner and leave him to the mercies of bribable staff and a system not designed for security... 

"If we have no other choice," Illya says grimly. "But not until then." He ignores the fear that curls in his stomach. "Let me see your bag."

It's a well-organised pack, with bandages, needles, sutures, neatly labelled pills and gauze. Illya rummages through it, long fingers sorting through the items until they pluck two from the bag. He is not even remotely a religious man, but he is better able than most appreciate serendipity when it occurs.

"What - what is that?" Gaby asks, the apprehension clear in her voice. 'That' is a wicked looking needle attached to a plastic tube with a stopcock at one end.

"For drip," Illya explains shortly. "But here we have no drip. So -" He strips the needle from one of the tubes, and replaces the cap at the end of the other tube with it. 

Gaby is as quick as ever on the uptake. She raises an eyebrow. "We are going to give blood to Solo? Can you even do that?"

"Of course," says Illya, a little defensively. Gaby's other eyebrow raises as well. Illya snorts. She is starting to know him too well. This is a worry, but it is a worry for another day. 

"You are only defensive when you are unsure," she notes coolly. 

Illya shrugs. "I have done this before. The outcome was satisfactory."

Gaby hums. "Do we know his blood type?" 

"I do not. But luckily for Cowboy, I know mine - O negative."

"Universal donor? That's good to know." Gaby looks from him to Solo. "What can I do?"

Illya smiles, because Gaby's no-nonsense efficiency is one of the many things he admires about her. "Follow my direction."

He settles down on the bed next to Solo's unresponsive body. The tube is long enough to allow a hands breadth of space between them both with Illya propped up on pillows against the headboard. He suppresses a sigh - or had it been a yawn? He is suddenly keenly aware that it is past one in the morning, and that he has not slept in almost forty hours. His whole body is one big ache, which he has managed to ignore until the contrast with the relief of being able to lie down. Illya shakes his head to clear it. This is not the time for weakness. 

Perhaps Gaby senses some of this, because her movements when she swabs Illya's wrist with alcohol are almost tender. When she does the same to the crook of Solo's elbow - white sleeve rolled carelessly up, skin paler than the linen shirt - there is no mistaking her gentleness. She looks up at Illya, her dark eyes huge.

"This is a very big needle," Gaby says. "And I am a mechanic, not a doctor." 

Illya smiles at her. Wraps one of his hands around her tiny hand, and guides her to his wrist. "Do not worry. I have easy to access artery."

Gaby pulls a face at him. "If that was meant to be reassuring - you failed."

"I have done this before," Illya reminds her. Never this willingly. But that doesn't matter now. The needle is a sharp, insistent pain. Gaby rushes to press a piece of gauze to the point of entry and Illya's fingers replace hers a moment later. He can feel the steady thrum of his pulse under them. Gaby waits, as directed, until bright red blood fills the tube and the first drop spills from the hollow needle at the other end before she slips it into the vein at Solo's elbow. Illya watches her tape the needle in place, securing it with a bandage before returning to give him the same treatment. "You should have been a doctor," he tells her, admiringly. "Very hard to do that on first try."

Gaby's hands instantly still and her head snaps up to glare at him. "You did not tell me that!"

Illya gives a one shouldered shrug, keeping his left arm still. "Did not want to worry you."

Gaby mutters something unflattering to herself. Illya tries not to smile.

"How long will this take?" she demands.

"Hard to say," Illya says. "Is not precise science."

Gaby looks like she wants to throw something at him, but is mercifully restrained by the lifeline that flows from Illya to Solo, bright red and vibrant. 

"This is emergency field medicine," Illya says defensively. "Very few studies. Guess maybe forty minutes, maybe more. Watch Solo to see." With that, he closes his eyes and leans back against the pillows. Fatigue is easy enough to ignore when the the brain is occupied and adrenalin is pumping. It's much harder when settled comfortably on a soft bed, with all imminent threats neutralised.

Not all threats, Illya corrects himself. Solo's pale skin and bloodless lips, the quick and shallow breathing, the complete lack of responsiveness from a man who usually slept as lightly as a cat - Illya is more concerned than he will let on to Gaby. He inches his left hand towards Solo until he brushes against Solo's arm. Solo's skin is cool and waxy. Illya doesn't pull his hand away.

"He is a terrible spy," he says quietly, and Gaby's fingers give his free hand a quick squeeze.

"And you are terribly sentimental," she replies tartly, her words at odds with the way her hand never lets go.

Illya doesn't want to think about how right she is. How right she has become. How tightly the two of them have wound themselves around his heart and his life. How unbecoming this is - he is - for a KGB agent.

"Take note of time," he instructs gruffly. "Forty minutes will be ten past two."

Gaby rolls her eyes at him. "Thank you, I can tell time."

Illya grunts at her, and returns to being still. The needle deep in his arm is a deep ache. He can feel the heat and rush of his blood flowing through it, and he turns his head minutely to study Solo. The man - his partner, his mind supplies helpfully, too tired and distracted to be impassive, it seems - is still deathly pale, those ridiculous cheekbones stark lines against his translucent skin. His normally immaculate hair is mussed, but perhaps not as much as might be expected. A corner of Illya's mouth lifts in amusement. He must remember to rib Solo about the amount of Brylcreem the man must use. The smell of it irrevocably reminds Illya of the Cowboy now. Solo changes his cologne and aftershave on a regular basis, as dictated by fashion and undercover assignments, but his hair products remain the same. Illya should point this out to his partner, he decides. It could be an important point in a case. A crack in an otherwise flawless disguise. But how to admit to Solo that Illya has been observing his habits when it comes to hair care?

"Illya!" 

Gaby's voice is raised, still this side of urgent, but not far off it. Perhaps she has been calling his name for some time. Illya drags his reluctant eyelids open, and blinks owlishly at her.

"How is Cowboy?" he asks. His tongue is thick and uncooperative. It takes more effort than it should to turn his head to bring Solo into view.

"Better, I think," Gaby says. "His heartbeat is stronger. Slower, too." And the grey has faded from his face, Illya is glad to see, replaced with the very faintest blush of colour.

"Should I wake him?" Gaby asks. "It's been twenty minutes," she adds, practical as ever. "I cleaned the wound on his leg, and he didn't even react."

Illya tilts his head, considering. Solo's skin beneath his fingers feels warmer - although he himself feels cooler, so Illya isn't confident to rely on that as a measure of Solo's condition. And he suspects, more firmly now, that Solo has lost a lot more blood than the agent had been willing to admit.

"Wait fifteen minutes," Illya instructs her. "Is not enough blood now."

Gaby studies him, then studies Solo, and evidently comes to some kind of conclusion from this, because she nods once and heads purposefully into the bathroom to return with a damp washcloth.

Illya watches her as she carefully cleans the smudges from Solo's face, and the blood from his hands. The white cloth, expensively thick and plush, quickly turns red and brown and grey. His own skin is prickly with sweat, clammy now that the air conditioning has had a chance to cool the suite, and Illya thinks wistfully of a hot shower before he can stop himself. He slides down the pillows, carefully so as not to jostle the needle, suddenly too exhausted to sit upright. He is going soft, first with his affection for his partners, and now with this temptation to give in to the demands of his body. Is this all that it will take to break him, marked as the KGB's finest? Seven months with an East German traitor and a corrupt American thief? He is a betrayal to his father's memory, an offence to all that his mother worked to save for him. He is a failure, a shame to his country and kin.

His hands tremble. Illya stares at them, waiting for that old, familiar wrath. It doesn't come. Despite what part of him - a very small part of him, now - desperately wants, thoughts of Solo and Gaby do not stir feelings of rage and humiliation. Irritation, yes; exasperation; often - but most strongly of all, respect, and comradeship and something warm and secret that he dare not name. Why, then, do his hands shake?

"Illya!" Gaby's face appears suddenly before his eyes, equal parts angry and afraid. "What have you done?"

"ничего," he answers. "Я не сделал достаточно." _Nothing. I have not done enough._

"No, no, no," Gaby says firmly. "English, Illya. You are not testing my Russian tonight."

Illya blinks, confused. "Я говорю по-английски." _I am speaking English._ The world spins. Solo's hand is warm in his. When did he start holding the Cowboy's hand? He can't quite remember. His wrist hurts. The gash across his side hurts. He isn't sure if there's a part of him that doesn't hurt.

Gaby is so close to him that he can smell the scent of her hair and feel the heat of her skin. She is, Illya thinks, the fiercest, loveliest thing he has ever seen.

"No more," she tells him, a strange edge to her voice. If Solo's hand is warm, Gaby's is scalding. She winds a bandage tightly around his arm, starting from his elbow and pausing at his wrist. He pulls away when he realises what she's doing.

"Nyet. Cowboy..."

"Solo will be just fine. If only you had the sense to ensure the same." Gaby sounds angry, but Illya can't understand why. He recognises now the effects of mild blood loss - the confusion, the shakiness, the feeling of tightness in his chest. These are good things - it means he has given enough to Solo to make a difference.

"Is good sign," he explains to her. "Was plan."

Gaby just glares at him, eyes fierce and bright, and yanks out the needle from his wrist without warning. Illya grunts in surprise and pain. Gaby presses more gauze to his wrist, winding the bandage so closely that his fingers lose sensation. His arm is lifted and raised up on embroidered cushions until it rests above his heart level.

"Don't move," Gaby demands. 

"This is normal side effect," Illya tries once more, his words blurring lazily into each other. "Nothing is wrong." His eyes slide closed. He wants so badly to rest, but he knows that he mustn't. 

Gaby doesn't reply. She is removing the needle from Napoleon's elbow, wrapping his arm up tight. "You are the two stupidest men I have ever met," she says angrily at last.

"Perhaps," comes the faint voice of Napoleon, for the first time in hours. He somehow manages to sound amused. "But also the bravest and most charming, I hope."

And that, and Gaby's little choked laugh, is all that Illya needs to sigh, and relax from wakefulness to sleep.

\---

Napoleon wakes to the new light of morning, and freezes, his heart racing in his chest. For a moment, he can't remember where he is, or who he is there with. But the solid, warm weight that he is curled around is unmistakably a very familiar Russian agent, and the slight hand that is stretched across the bed to be tangled in his hair belongs to a very feisty German-British agent. Napoleon hums to himself, panic replaced by curiosity. His leg hurts dully, and he thinks he might be more tired than he's ever been, but on the whole, he feels remarkably good. Much better than he had any right to be feeling, now that he can remember - at least parts of - the night before. 

He catches sight of the bandage around Peril's wrist - white, but marred by a spot of dried blood, and thoughtfully touches the matching bandage at his own elbow. He sees the smudge of Gaby's mascara on her cheek, the frown that still mars her brow even in sleep, the protective way she's wrapped around Illya. 

It takes him - Napoleon Solo, who works better alone, who is all charm and no emotion, to whom intimacy is a weapon - a moment to identify how he feels.

Safe.

His eyes drift shut, and he lets the even sounds of Gaby and Illya's breathing carry him back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started off as an answer to the kinkmeme prompt of Napoleon crashing after an adrenalin rush, turned into a fic about the effects of blood loss, meandered a lot, butchered both medical science and Russian, and ended up somewhere I hadn't expected it to go.
> 
> If I wasn't the slowest writer in the world, I would polish this up.
> 
> As it is, all I can say is this fandom is wonderful beyond words, and I adore reading all your fic and admiring your talent!


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